Biceps vs Triceps strength ratio

I was wondering if it is better to have your biceps or triceps stronger or should you try to strive for equality in strength for both?
Is your reasoning purely from an aesthetically pleasing standpoint or would it help prevent injuries?

I tried searching for this but couldn't find anything, so I apologize if this has been brought up many times before.

Just cause theyre near each other why does that mean you have to compare them anyway?

Even though they do separate movements I find a need to compare them since they are muscles that complement each other, you do not have to compare the two but its not as if I'm attempting to compare my obliques to my quadriceps.

As to why I want to get a general idea.
Hamstrings and quadriceps are used for different movements and cannot be easily compared but if you have very strong quadriceps and weak hamstrings you are more likely to obtain a hamstring injury.

It's a fairly easy comparison really. They are both dominant muscles of the arm and body buildig world. It's not out there to ask such a question. they both do separate duties, but overall stength, the tricep should be much stronger. The tricep is also significantly bigger than a bicep, by atleast %50. So in short, doing nothing but curls won't beef those guns up alone. Gotta work the tricep to get em bigger!

I was wondering if it is better to have your biceps or triceps stronger or should you try to strive for equality in strength for both? Is your reasoning purely from an aesthetically pleasing standpoint or would it help prevent injuries?

Triceps, for purely aesthetic reasons since I think they look cooler.

Originally Posted by mrvnplcs1008

The arm is 2/3 triceps and 1/3 bicep.

This meme is actually a myth that has never been proven, and makes no actual sense since the size of either muscle depends on how much the person in question is training it.

Not to mention we've got flexors besides biceps helping it out (brachialis/brachioradialis).

This myth will naturally stick around for years, propogated by guys like me who hate biceps who lack awareness of what motivates their views.

Originally Posted by fivetoedslothh

this. just try to bb curl the same amount of weight you use for tricep pushdowns for 12 reps

I actually couldn't get anywhere near what I could curl doing pushdowns. But that's because I had always done more biceps work than triceps work.

How much people can do in either iso is circumstantial and means nothing.

Originally Posted by Mr.NoPrint

theyre near each other why does that mean you have to compare them anyway?

They're an agonist/antagonist pair, that's why people care.

Or to get more specific: the biceps' antagonist is the long head of the triceps, and the lateral/medial heads of the triceps are the antagonist of the brachialis and maybe the brachiradialis.

Originally Posted by gonzalohiguain

Like they said it's about leverage, you can't compare, I can do 25s on EZ bar curl on curls, but I can do 15s on the skullcrusher, yet my triceps are better developed compared to my biceps.

Leverage is a factor, yeah, but it should be possible to compare them.

Maybe the reason your triceps do less in isos is that you pre-exhaust them by relying on them more in pushing movements than you rely on bis during pulling?

Originally Posted by matjusm

I just don't see how one can compare the strength of two different muscles to each other since there's no good way to compare. You can only compare lifts.

Why aren't lifts a good way to compare? You just pick 2 which have similar leverage and strength curves.

Originally Posted by Ironwolf2187

The tricep is also significantly bigger than a bicep, by atleast %50.

1.5:1 is more realistic than 2:1, but still wrong: size depends on training. Short of analyzing the relative size of bicep/tricep on a foetus in the womb before it's born, I don't see any unbiased way of measuring the relative sizes of muscles since they get influenced by the activities they're used to do.

Originally Posted by Ironwolf2187

So in short, doing nothing but curls won't beef those guns up alone. Gotta work the tricep to get em bigger!

Also wrong, doing curls alone can and does beef up the guns: they can get bigger without working triceps. But obviously doing triceps is smart and would more rapidly lead to a net increase in size. Same reason people should train the entire leg and not just do knee extensions/curls alone.

Its not like you do the same lifts or movements for each so theres no way to compare.
Just cause theyre near each other why does that mean you have to compare them anyway?

Spot on. Plus you said strength? Do you literally mean strength , or are you meaning size( hypertrophy)? Honestly I don't see a problem with everyone of your muscles being freaky strong, but you may have your own wishes of the size. They are different muscles. Completely. One is the antagonist of the other. However I would like to say that if you looked at an EMG during single joint movements, th same activity would occurr between the two. But it makes sense to say triceps are stronger. I've close gripped skull crushers for 135 for reps, and there's no way I can curl that. My biceps pale in comparison